Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his "Malay Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact. In one case,[211] a Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and who had not been able to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace was on the point of starting, "came running down after us holding up a bird, and saying with great satisfaction, 'Now I owe you nothing!'" And this though he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.
Mr. Wallace's observations and opinions on this head seem hardly to meet with due appreciation in Sir John Lubbock's recent work on Primitive Man.[212] But considering the acute powers of observation and the industry of Mr. Wallace, and especially considering the years he passed in familiar and uninterrupted intercourse with natives, his opinion and testimony should surely carry with it great weight. He has informed the Author that he found a strongly marked and widely diffused modesty, in sexual matters, amongst all the tribes with which he came in contact. In the same way Mr. Bonwick, in his work on the Tasmanians, testifies to the modesty exhibited by the naked females of that race, who by the decorum of their postures gave evidence of the possession in germ of what under circumstances would become the highest chastity and refinement.
Hasty and incomplete observations and inductions are prejudicial enough to physical science, but when their effect is to degrade untruthfully our common humanity, there is an additional motive to regret them. A hurried visit to a tribe, whose language, traditions and customs are unknown, is sometimes deemed sufficient for "smart" remarks as to "ape characters," &c., which are as untrue as irrelevant. It should not be forgotten how extremely difficult it is to enter into the ideas and feelings of an alien race. If in the nineteenth century a French theatrical audience can witness with acquiescent approval, as a type of English manners and ideas, the representation of a marquis who sells his wife at Smithfield, &c. &c., it is surely no wonder if the ideas of a tribe of newly visited savages should be more or less misunderstood. To enter into such ideas requires long and familiar intimacy, like that experienced by the explorer of the Malay Archipelago. From him, and others, we have abundant evidence that moral ideas exist, at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they sometimes attain even a highly developed state. No amount of evidence as to acts of moral depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to establish that moral intuitions exist in savages, not that their actions are good.
Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as to the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various countries or of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing what particular actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the effects which prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly, physical conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions. Thus Sir John Lubbock speaks[213] of certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr. Hunt,[214] have the custom of piously choking their parents under certain circumstances, in order to insure their happiness in a future life. Should any one take such facts as telling against the belief in an absolute morality, he would show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute; for such facts tell in favour of it.
Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and faculty by which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and by themselves are right and what wrong,—an infallible and universal internal code,—the illustration would be to the point. But all that need be contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but also a quality of "higher" which ought to be followed, and of "lower" which ought to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the will for choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.
This has been well put by Mr. James Martineau in his excellent essay on Whewell's Morality. He says,[215] "If moral good were a quality resident in each action, as whiteness in snow, or sweetness in fruits; and if the moral faculty was our appointed instrument for detecting its presence; many consequences would ensue which are at variance with fact. The wide range of differences observable in the ethical judgments of men would not exist; and even if they did, could no more be reduced and modified by discussion than constitutional differences of hearing or of vision. And, as the quality of moral good either must or must not exist in every important operation of the will, we should discern its presence or absence separately in each; and even though we never had the conception of more than one insulated action, we should be able to pronounce upon its character. This, however, we have plainly no power to do. Every moral judgment is relative, and involves a comparison of two terms. When we praise what has been done, it is with the coexistent conception of something else that might have been done; and when we resolve on a course as right, it is to the exclusion of some other that is wrong. This fact, that every ethical decision is in truth a preference, an election of one act as higher than another, appears of fundamental importance in the analysis of the moral sentiments."
From this point of view it is plain how trifling are arguments drawn from the acts of a savage, since an action highly immoral in us might be one exceedingly virtuous in him—being the highest presented to his choice in his degraded intellectual condition and peculiar circumstances.
It need only be contended, then, that there is a perception of "right" incapable of further analysis; not that there is any infallible internal guide as to all the complex actions which present themselves for choice. The principle is given in our nature, the application of the principle is the result of a thousand educational influences.
It is no wonder, then, that, in complex "cases of conscience," it is sometimes a matter of exceeding difficulty to determine which of two courses of action is the less objectionable. This no more invalidates the truth of moral principles than does the difficulty of a mathematical problem cast doubt on mathematical principles. Habit, education, and intellectual gifts facilitate the correct application of both.
Again, if our moral insight is intensified or blunted by our habitual wishes or, indirectly, by our physical condition, the same may be said of our perception of the true relations of physical facts one to another. An eager wish for marriage has led many a man to exaggerate the powers of a limited income, and a fit of dyspepsia has given an unreasonably gloomy aspect to more than one balance-sheet.
Considering that moral intuitions have to do with insensible matters, they cannot be expected to be more clear than the perception of physical facts. And if the latter perceptions may be influenced by volition, desire, or health, our moral views may also be expected to be so influenced, and this in a higher degree because they so often run counter to our desires. A bottle or two of wine may make a sensible object appear double; what wonder, then, if our moral perceptions are sometimes warped and distorted by such powerful agencies as an evil education or an habitual absence of self-restraint. In neither case does occasional distortion invalidate the accuracy of normal and habitual perception.
The distinctness here and now of the ideas of "right" and "useful" is however, as before said, fully conceded by Mr. Herbert Spencer, although he contends that these conceptions are one in root and origin.
His utilitarian Genesis of Morals, however, has been recently combated by Mr. Richard Holt Hutton in a paper which appeared in Macmillan's Magazine.[216]
This writer aptly objects an argumentum ad hominem, applying to morals the same argument that has been applied in this work to our sense of musical harmony, and by Mr. Wallace to the vocal organs of man.
Mr. Herbert Spencer's notions on the subject are thus expressed by himself: "To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed moral science, there have been, and still are developing in the race certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the result of accumulated experiences of utility gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of space possessed by any living individual to have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to him their slowly developed nervous organizations; just as I believe that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought quite independent of experience;—so do I believe that the experiences of utility, organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing corresponding nervous modifications which, by continued transmissions and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition, active emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that, just as the space intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them, so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of moral science, and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them."
Against this view of Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Hutton objects—"1. That even as regards Mr. Spencer's illustration from geometrical intuitions, his process would be totally inadequate, since you could not deduce the necessary space intuition of which he speaks from any possible accumulations of familiarity with space relations.... We cannot inherit more than our fathers had: no amount of experience of facts, however universal, can give rise to that particular characteristic of intuitions and a priori ideas, which compels us to deny the possibility that in any other world, however otherwise different, our experience (as to space relations) could be otherwise.
"2. That the case of moral intuitions is very much stronger.
"3. That if Mr. Spencer's theory accounts for anything, it accounts not for the deepening of a sense of utility and inutility into right and wrong, but for the drying up of the sense of utility and inutility into mere inherent tendencies, which would exercise over us not more authority but less, than a rational sense of utilitarian issues.
"4. That Mr. Spencer's theory could not account for the intuitional sacredness now attached to individual moral rules and principles, without accounting a fortiori for the general claim of the greatest happiness principle over us as the final moral intuition—-which is conspicuously contrary to the fact, as not even the utilitarians themselves plead any instinctive or intuitive sanction for their great principle.
"5. That there is no trace of positive evidence of any single instance of the transformation of a utilitarian rule of right into an intuition, since we find no utilitarian principle of the most ancient times which is now an accepted moral intuition, nor any moral intuition, however sacred, which has not been promulgated thousands of years ago, and which has not constantly had to stop the tide of utilitarian objections to its authority—and this age after age, in our own day quite as much as in days gone by.... Surely, if anything is remarkable in the history of morality, it is the anticipatory character, if I may use the expression, of moral principles—the intensity and absoluteness with which they are laid down ages before the world has approximated to the ideal thus asserted."
Sir John Lubbock, in his work on Primitive Man before referred to, abandons Mr. Spencer's explanation of the genesis of morals while referring to Mr. Hutton's criticisms on the subject. Sir John proposes to substitute "deference to authority" instead of "sense of interest" as the origin of our conception of "duty," saying that what has been found to be beneficial has been traditionally inculcated on the young, and thus has become to be dissociated from "interest" in the mind, though the inculcation itself originally sprung from that source. This, however, when analysed, turns out to be a distinction without a difference. It is nothing but utilitarianism, pure and simple, after all. For it can never be intended that authority is obeyed because of an intuition that it should be deferred to, for that would be to admit the very principle of absolute morality which Sir John combats. It must be meant, then, that authority is obeyed through fear of the consequences of disobedience, or through pleasure felt in obeying the authority which commands. In the latter case we have "pleasure" as the end and no rudiment of the conception "duty." In the former we have fear of punishment, which appeals directly to the sense of "utility to the individual," and no amount of such a sense will produce the least germ of "ought" which is a conception different in kind, and in which the notion of "punishment" has no place. Thus, Sir John Lubbock's explanation only concerns a mode in which the sense of "duty" may be stimulated or appealed to, and makes no approximation to an explanation of its origin.
Could the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, of Mr. Mill, or of Mr. Darwin on this subject be maintained, or should they come to be generally accepted, the consequences would be disastrous indeed! Were it really the case that virtue was a mere kind of "retrieving," then certainly we should have to view with apprehension the spread of intellectual cultivation, which would lead the human "retrievers" to regard from a new point of view their fetching and carrying. We should be logically compelled to acquiesce in the vociferations of some continental utilitarians, who would banish altogether the senseless words "duty" and "merit;" and then, one important influence which has aided human progress being withdrawn, we should be reduced to hope that in this case the maxim cessante causa cessat ipse effectus might through some incalculable accident fail to apply.
It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such moral disruption, by asserting that for every immoral act, word, or thought, each man during this life receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a regard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any moral catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the acceptance of a dogma which is not only incapable of proof, but is opposed to the commonly received opinion of mankind in all ages? Ancient literature, sacred and profane, teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and certainly, as Mr. Hutton observes,[217] "Honesty must have been associated by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy consequences, and we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually associated with happy consequences.... When the concentrated experience of previous generations was held, not indeed to justify, but to excuse by utilitarian considerations, craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness."
This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the events of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is absolutely contrary to fact.
History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be selected from one of the most critical periods of modern times. Let it be granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently just? that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy?
This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to be further pursued, tempting as it is. But a passing protest against a superstitious and deluding dogma may stand,—a dogma which may, like any other dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which is remarkable for being destitute, at one and the same time, of both authoritative sanction and the support of reason and observation.
To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on "Natural Selection," it seems that, from the reasons given in this chapter, we may safely affirm—1. That "Natural Selection" could not have produced, from the sensations of pleasure and pain experienced by brutes, a higher degree of morality than was useful; therefore it could have produced any amount of "beneficial habits," but not abhorrence of certain acts as impure and sinful.
2. That it could not have developed that high esteem for acts of care and tenderness to the aged and infirm which actually exists, but would rather have perpetuated certain low social conditions which obtain in some savage localities.
3. That it could not have evolved from ape sensations the noble virtue of a Marcus Aurelius, or the loving but manly devotion of a St. Lewis.
4. That, alone, it could not have given rise to the maxim fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.
5. That the interval between material and formal morality is one altogether beyond its power to traverse.
Also, that the anticipatory character of moral principles is a fatal bar to that explanation of their origin which is offered to us by Mr. Herbert Spencer. And, finally, that the solution of that origin proposed recently by Sir John Lubbock is a mere version of simple utilitarianism, appealing to the pleasure or safety of the individual, and therefore utterly incapable of solving the riddle it attacks.
Such appearing to be the case as to the power of "Natural Selection," we, nevertheless, find moral conceptions—formally moral ideas—not only spread over the civilized world, but manifesting themselves unmistakeably (in however rudimentary a condition, and however misapplied) amongst the lowest and most degraded of savages. If from amongst these, individuals can be brought forward who seem to be destitute of any moral conception, similar cases also may easily be found in highly civilized communities. Such cases tell no more against moral intuitions than do cases of colour-blindness or idiotism tell against sight and reason. We have thus a most important and conspicuous fact, the existence of which is fatal to the theory of "Natural Selection," as put forward of late by Mr. Darwin and his most ardent followers. It must be remarked, however, that whatever force this fact may have against a belief in the origination of man from brutes by minute, fortuitous variations, it has no force whatever against the conception of the orderly evolution and successive manifestation of specific forms by ordinary natural law—even if we include amongst such the upright frame, the ready hand and massive brain of man himself.
CHAPTER X.
PANGENESIS.
A provisional hypothesis supplementing "Natural Selection."—Statement of the hypothesis.—Difficulty as to multitude of gemmules.—As to certain modes of reproduction.—As to formations without the requisite gemmules.—Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.—Difficulty as to developmental force of gemmules.—As to their spontaneous fission.—Pangenesis and Vitalism.—Paradoxical reality.—Pangenesis scarcely superior to anterior hypotheses.—Buffon.—Owen.—Herbert Spencer.—"Gemmules" as mysterious as "physiological units."—Conclusion.
In addition to the theory of "Natural Selection," by which it has been attempted to account for the origin of species, Mr. Darwin has also put forward what he modestly terms "a provisional hypothesis" (that of Pangenesis), by which to account for the origin of each and every individual form.
Now, though the hypothesis of Pangenesis is no necessary part of "Natural Selection," still any treatise on specific origination would be incomplete if it did not take into consideration this last speculation of Mr. Darwin. The hypothesis in question may be stated as follows: That each living organism is ultimately made up of an almost infinite number of minute particles, or organic atoms, termed "gemmules," each of which has the power of reproducing its kind. Moreover, that these particles circulate freely about the organism which is made up of them, and are derived from all the parts of all the organs of the less remote ancestors of each such organism during all the states and stages of such several ancestors' existence; and therefore of the several states of each of such ancestors' organs. That such a complete collection of gemmules is aggregated in each ovum and spermatozoon in most animals, and in each part capable of reproducing by gemmation (budding) in the lowest animals and in plants. Therefore in many of such lower organisms such a congeries of ancestral gemmules must exist in every part of their bodies, since in them every part is capable of reproducing by gemmation. Mr. Darwin must evidently admit this, since he says: "It has often been said by naturalists that each cell of a plant has the actual or potential capacity of reproducing the whole plant; but it has this power only in virtue of containing gemmules derived from every part."[218]
Moreover, these gemmules are supposed to tend to aggregate themselves, and to reproduce in certain definite relations to other gemmules. Thus, when the foot of an eft is cut off, its reproduction is explained by Mr. Darwin as resulting from the aggregation of those floating gemmules which come next in order to those of the cut surface, and the successive aggregations of the other kinds of gemmules which come after in regular order. Also, the most ordinary processes of repair are similarly accounted for, and the successive development of similar parts and organs in creatures in which such complex evolutions occur is explained in the same way, by the independent action of separate gemmules.
In order that each living creature may be thus furnished, the number of such gemmules in each must be inconceivably great. Mr. Darwin says:[219] "In a highly organized and complex animal, the gemmules thrown off from each different cell or unit throughout the body must be inconceivably numerous and minute. Each unit of each part, as it changes during development—and we know that some insects undergo at least twenty metamorphoses—must throw off its gemmules. All organic beings, moreover, include many dormant gemmules derived from their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but not from all their progenitors. These almost infinitely numerous and minute gemmules must be included in each bud, ovule, spermatozoon, and pollen grain." We have seen also that in certain cases a similar multitude of gemmules must be included also in every considerable part of the whole body of each organism, but where are we to stop? There must be gemmules not only from every organ, but from every component part of such organ, from every subdivision of such component part, and from every cell, thread, or fibre entering into the composition of such subdivision. Moreover, not only from all these, but from each and every successive stage of the evolution and development of such successively more and more elementary parts. At the first glance this new atomic theory has charms from its apparent simplicity, but the attempt thus to follow it out into its ultimate limits and extreme consequences seems to indicate that it is at once insufficient and cumbrous.
Mr. Darwin himself is, of course, fully aware that there must be some limit to this aggregation of gemmules. He says:[220] "Excessively minute and numerous as they are believed to be, an infinite number derived, during a long course of modification and descent, from each cell of each progenitor, could not be supported and nourished by the organism."
But apart from these matters, which will be more fully considered further on, the hypothesis not only does not appear to account for certain phenomena which, in order to be a valid theory, it ought to account for; but it seems absolutely to conflict with patent and notorious facts.
How, for example, does it explain the peculiar reproduction which is found to take place in certain marine worms—certain annelids?
(A new head having been formed towards the hinder end of the body of the parent.)
In such creatures we see that, from time to time, one of the segments of the body gradually becomes modified till it assumes the condition of a head, and this remarkable phenomenon is repeated again and again, the body of the worm thus multiplying serially into new individuals which successively detach themselves from the older portion. The development of such a mode of reproduction by "Natural Selection" seems not less inexplicable than does its continued performance through the aid of "pangenesis." For how can gemmules attach themselves to others to which they do not normally or generally succeed? Scarcely less difficult to understand is the process of the stomach-carrying-off mode of metamorphosis before spoken of as existing in the Echinoderms. Next, as to certain patent and notorious facts: On the hypothesis of pangenesis, no creature can develop an organ unless it possesses the component gemmules which serve for its formation. No creature can possess such gemmules unless it inherits them from its parents, grandparents, or its less remote ancestors. Now, the Jews are remarkably scrupulous as to marriage, and rarely contract such a union with individuals not of their own race. This practice has gone on for thousands of years, and similarly also for thousands of years the rite of circumcision has been unfailingly and carefully performed. If then the hypothesis of pangenesis is well founded, that rite ought to be now absolutely or nearly superfluous from the necessarily continuous absence of certain gemmules through so many centuries and so many generations. Yet it is not at all so, and this fact seems to amount almost to an experimental demonstration that the hypothesis of pangenesis is an insufficient explanation of individual evolution.
Two exceedingly good criticisms of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis have appeared. One of these is by Mr. G. H. Lewes,[221] the other by Professor Delpino of Florence.[222] The latter gentleman gives a report of an observation made by him upon a certain plant, which observation adds force to what has just been said about the Jewish race. He says:[223] "If we examine and compare the numerous species of the genus Salvia, commencing with Salvia officinalis, which may pass as the main state of the genus, and concluding with Salvia verticillata, which may be taken as the most highly developed form, and as the most distant from the type, we observe a singular phenomenon. The lower cell of each of the two fertile anthers, which is much reduced and different from the superior even in Salvia officinalis, is transmuted in other salviæ into an organ (nectarotheca) having a very different form and function, and finally disappears entirely in Salvia verticillata.
"Now, on one occasion, in a flower belonging to an individual of Salvia verticillata, and only on the left stamen, I observed a perfectly developed and pollinigerous lower cell, perfectly homologous with that which is normally developed in Salvia officinalis. This case of atavism is truly singular. According to the theory of Pangenesis, it is necessary to assume that all the gemmules of this anomalous formation, and therefore the mother-gemmule of the cell, and the daughter-gemmules of the special epidermic tissue, and of the very singular subjacent tissue of the endothecium, have been perpetuated, and transmitted from parent to offspring in a dormant state, and through a number of generations, such as startles the imagination, and leads it to refuse its consent to the theory of Pangenesis, however seductive it may be." This seems a strong confirmation of what has been here advanced.
The main objection raised against Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is that it (Pangenesis) requires so many subordinate hypotheses for its support, and that some of these are not tenable.
Professor Delpino considers[224] that as many as eight of these subordinate hypotheses are required, namely, that—
"1. The emission of the gemmules takes place, or may take place in all states of the cell.
"2. The quantity of gemmules emitted from every cell is very great.
"3. The minuteness of the gemmules is extreme.
"4. The gemmules possess two sorts of affinity, one of which might be called propagative, and the other germinative affinity.
"5. By means of the propagative affinity all the gemmules emitted by all the cells of the individual flow together and become condensed in the cells which compose the sexual organs, whether male or female (embryonal vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids, spermatozoids), and likewise flow together and become condensed in the cells which constitute the organs of a sexual or agamic reproduction (buds, spores, bulbilli, portions of the body separated by scission, &c.).
"6. By means of the germinative affinity, every gemmule (except in cases of anomalies or monstrosities) can be developed only in cells homologous with the mother-cells of the cell from which they originated. In other words, the gemmules from any cell can only be developed in unison with the cell preceding it in due order of succession, and whilst in a nascent state.
"7. Of each kind of gernmule a great number perishes; a great number remains in a dormant state through many generations in the bodies of descendants; the remainder germinate and reproduce the mother-cell.
"8. Every gemmule may multiply itself by a process of scission into any number of equivalent gemmules."
Mr. Darwin has published a short notice in reply to Professor Delpino, in Scientific Opinion of October 20, 1869, p. 426. In this reply he admits the justice of Professor Delpino's attack, but objects to the alleged necessity of the first subordinate hypothesis, namely, that the emission of gemmules takes place in all states of the cell. But if this is not the case, then a great part of the utility and distinction of pangenesis is destroyed, or as Mr. Lewes justly says,[225] "If gemmules produce whole cells, we have the very power which was pronounced mysterious in larger organisms."
Mr. Darwin also does not see the force of the objection to the power of self-division which must be asserted of the gemmules themselves if Pangenesis be true. The objection, however, appears to many to be formidable. To admit the power of spontaneous division and multiplication in such rudimentary structures, seems a complete contradiction. The gemmules, by the hypothesis of Pangenesis, are the ultimate organized components of the body, the absolute organic atoms of which each body is composed; how then can they be divisible? Any part of a gemmule would be an impossible (because a less than possible) quantity. If it is divisible into still smaller organic wholes, as a germ-cell is, it must be made up as the germ-cell is, of subordinate component atoms, which are then the true gemmules. This process may be repeated ad infinitum, unless we get to true organic atoms, the true gemmules, whatever they may be, and they necessarily will be incapable of any process of spontaneous fission. It is remarkable that Mr. Darwin brings forward in support of gemmule fission, the observation that "Thuret has seen the zoospore of an alga divide itself, and both halves germinate." Yet on the hypothesis of Pangenesis, the zoospore of an alga must contain gemmules from all the cells of the parent algæ, and from all the parts of all their less remote ancestors in all their stages of existence. What wonder then that such an excessively complex body should divide and multiply; and what parity is there between such a body and a gemmule? A steam-engine and a steel-filing might equally well be compared together.
Professor Delpino makes a further objection which, however, will only be of weight in the eyes of Vitalists. He says,[226] Pangenesis is not to be received because "it leads directly to the negation of a specific vital principle, co-ordinating and regulating all the movements, acts, and functions of the individuals in which it is incarnated. For Pangenesis of the individual is a term without meaning. If, in contemplating an animal of high organization, we regard it purely as an aggregation of developed gemmules, although these gemmules have been evolved successively one after the other, and one within the other, notwithstanding they elude the conception of the real and true individual, these problematical and invisible gemmules must be regarded as so many individuals. Now, that real, true, living individuals exist in nature, is a truth which is persistently attested to us by our consciousness. But how, then, can we explain that a great quantity of dissimilar elements, like the atoms of matter, can unite to form those perfect unities which we call individuals, if we do not suppose the existence of a specific principle, proper to the individual but foreign to the component atoms, which aggregates these said atoms, groups them into molecules, and then moulds the molecules into cells, the cells into tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into apparatus?"
"But, it may be urged in opposition by the Pangenesists, your vital principle is an unknown and irresolute x. This is true; but, on the other hand, let us see whether Pangenesis produces a clearer formula, and one free from unknown elements. The existence of the gemmules is a first unknown element; the propagative affinity of the gemmules is a second; their germinative affinity is a third; their multiplication by fission is a fourth—and what an unknown element!"
"Thus, in Pangenesis, everything proceeds by force of unknown elements, and we may ask whether it is more logical to prefer a system which assumes a multitude of unknown elements to a system which assumes only a single one?"
Mr. Darwin appears, by "Natural Selection," to destroy the reality of species, and by Pangenesis that of the individual. Mr. Lewes observes[227] of the individual that "This whole is only a subjective conception which summarizes the parts, and that in point of fact it is the parts which are reproduced." But the parts are also, from the same point of view, merely subjective until we come to the absolute organic atoms. These atoms, on the other hand, are utterly invisible, intangible; indeed, in the words of Mr. Darwin, inconceivable. Thus, then, it results from the theories in question, that the organic world is reduced to utter unreality as regards all that can be perceived by the senses or distinctly imagined by the mind; while the only reality consists of the invisible, the insensible, the inconceivable; in other words, nothing is known that really is, and only the nonexistent can be known. A somewhat paradoxical outcome of the speculations of those who profess to rely exclusively on the testimony of sense. "Les extrêmes se touchent," and extreme sensationalism shakes hands with the "das seyn ist das nichts" of Hegel.
Altogether the hypothesis of Pangenesis seems to be little, if at all, superior to anterior hypotheses of a more or less similar nature.
Apart from the atoms of Democritus, and apart also from the speculations of mediæval writers, the molecules of Bonnet and of Buffon almost anticipated the hypothesis of Pangenesis. According to the last-named author,[228] organic particles from every part of the body assemble in the sexual secretions, and by their union build up the embryo, each particle taking its due place, and occupying in the offspring a similar position to that which it occupied in the parents. In 1849 Professor Owen, in his treatise on "Parthenogenesis," put forward another conception. According to this, the cells resulting from the subdivision of the germ-cell preserve their developmental force, unless employed in building up definite organic structures. In certain creatures, and in certain parts of other creatures, germ-cells unused are stored up, and by their agency lost limbs and other mutilations are repaired. Such unused products of the germ-cell are also supposed to become located in the generative products.
According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his "Principles of Biology," each living organism consists of certain so-called "physiological units." Each of these units has an innate power and capacity, by which it tends to build up and reproduce the entire organism of which it forms a part, unless in the meantime its force is exhausted by its taking part in the production of some distinct and definite tissue—a condition somewhat similar to that conceived by Professor Owen.
Now, at first sight, Mr. Darwin's atomic theory appears to be more simple than any of the others. It has been objected that while Mr. Spencer's theory requires the assumption of an innate power and tendency in each physiological unit, Mr. Darwin's, on the other hand, requires nothing of the kind, but explains the evolution of each individual by purely mechanical conceptions. In fact, however, it is not so. Each gemmule, according to Mr. Darwin, is really the seat of powers, elective affinities, and special tendencies as marked and mysterious as those possessed by the physiological unit of Mr. Spencer, with the single exception that the former has no tendency to build up the whole living, complex organism of which it forms a part. Some may think this an important distinction, but it can hardly be so, for Mr. Darwin considers that his gemmule has the innate power and tendency to build up and transform itself into the whole living, complex cell of which it forms a part; and the one tendency is, in principle, fully as difficult to understand, fully as mysterious, as is the other. The difference is but one of degree, not of kind. Moreover, the one mystery in the case of the "physiological unit" explains all, while with regard to the gemmule, as we have seen, it has to be supplemented by other powers and tendencies, each distinct, and each in itself inexplicable and profoundly mysterious.
That there should be physiological units possessed of the power attributed to them, harmonizes with what has recently been put forward by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian; who maintains that under fit conditions the simplest organisms develop themselves into relatively large and complex ones. This is not supposed by him to be due to any inheritance of ancestral gemmules, but to direct growth and transformation of the most minute and the simplest organisms, which themselves, by all reason and analogy, owe their existence to immediate transformation from the inorganic world.
Thus, then, there are grave difficulties in the way of the reception of the hypothesis of Pangenesis, which moreover, if established, would leave the evolution of individual organisms, when thoroughly analysed, little if at all less mysterious or really explicable than it is at present.
As was said at the beginning of this chapter, "Pangenesis" and "Natural Selection" are quite separable and distinct hypotheses. The fall of one of these by no means necessarily includes that of the other. Nevertheless, Mr. Darwin has associated them closely together, and, therefore, the refutation of Pangenesis may render it advisable for those who have hitherto accepted "Natural Selection" to reconsider that theory.
CHAPTER XI.
SPECIFIC GENESIS.
Review of the statements and arguments of preceding chapters.—Cumulative argument against predominant action of "Natural Selection."—Whether anything positive as well as negative can be enunciated.—Constancy of laws of nature does not necessarily imply constancy of specific evolution.—Possible exceptional stability of existing epoch.—Probability that an internal cause of change exists.—Innate powers must be conceived as existing somewhere or other.—Symbolism of molecular action under vibrating impulses.—Professor Owen's statement.—Statement of the Author's view.—It avoids the difficulties which oppose "Natural Selection."—It harmonizes apparently conflicting conceptions.—Summary and conclusion.
Having now severally reviewed the principal biological facts which bear upon specific manifestation, it remains to sum up the results, and to endeavour to ascertain what, if anything, can be said positively, as well as negatively, on this deeply interesting question.
In the preceding chapters it has been contended, in the first place, that no mere survival of the fittest accidental and minute variations can account for the incipient stages of useful structures, such as, e.g., the heads of flat-fishes, the baleen of whales, vertebrate limbs, the laryngeal structures of the newborn kangaroo, the pedicellariæ of Echinoderms, or for many of the facts of mimicry, and especially those last touches of mimetic perfection, where an insect not only mimics a leaf, but one worm-eaten and attacked by fungi.
Also, that structures like the hood of the cobra and the rattle of the rattlesnake seem to require another explanation.
Again, it has been contended that instances of colour, as in some apes; of beauty, as in some shell-fish; and of utility, as in many orchids, are examples of conditions which are quite beyond the power of Natural Selection to originate and develop.
Next, the peculiar mode of origin of the eye (by the simultaneous and concurrent modification of distinct parts), with the wonderful refinement of the human ear and voice, have been insisted on; as also, that the importance of all these facts is intensified through the necessity (admitted by Mr. Darwin) that many individuals should be similarly and simultaneously modified in order that slightly favourable variations may hold their own in the struggle for life, against the overwhelming force and influence of mere number.
Again, we have considered, in the third chapter, the great improbability that from minute variations in all directions alone and unaided, save by the survival of the fittest, closely similar structures should independently arise; though, on a non-Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis, their development might be expected a priori. We have seen, however, that there are many instances of wonderfully close similarity which are not due to genetic affinity; the most notable instance, perhaps, being that brought forward by Mr. Murphy, namely, the appearance of the same eye-structure in the vertebrate and molluscous sub-kingdoms. A curious resemblance, though less in degree, has also been seen to exist between the auditory organs of fishes and of Cephalopods. Remarkable similarities between certain placental and implacental mammals, between the bird's-head processes of Polyzoa and the pedicellariæ of Echinoderms, between Ichthyosauria and Cetacea, with very many other similar coincidences, have also been pointed out.
Evidence has also been brought forward to show that similarity is sometimes directly induced by very obscure conditions, at present quite inexplicable, e.g. by causes immediately connected with geographical distribution; as in the loss of the tail in certain forms of Lepidoptera and in simultaneous modifications of colour in others, and in the direct modification of young English oysters, when transported to the shore of the Mediterranean.
Again, it has been asserted that certain groups of organic forms seem to have an innate tendency to remarkable developments of some particular kind, as beauty and singularity of plumage in the group of birds of paradise.
It has also been contended that there is something to be said in favour of sudden, as opposed to exceedingly minute and gradual, modifications, even if the latter are not fortuitous. Cases were brought forward, in Chapter IV., such as the bivalve just mentioned, twenty-seven kinds of American trees simultaneously and similarly modified, also the independent production of pony breeds, and the case of the English greyhounds in Mexico, the offspring of which produced directly acclimated progeny. Besides these, the case of the Normandy pigs, of Datura tatula, and also of the black-shouldered peacock, have been spoken of. The teeth of the labyrinthodon, the hand of the potto, the whalebone of whales, the wings of birds, the climbing tendrils of some plants, &c. have also been adduced as instances of structures, the origin and production of which are probably due rather to considerable modifications than to minute increments.
It has also been shown that certain forms which were once supposed to be especially transitional and intermediate (as, e.g., the aye-aye) are really by no means so; while the general rule, that the progress of forms has been "from the more general to the more special," has been shown to present remarkable exceptions, as, e.g., Macrauchenia, the Glyptodon, and the sabre-toothed tiger (Machairodus).
Next, as to specific stability, it has been seen that there may be a certain limit to normal variability, and that if changes take place they may be expected a priori to be marked and considerable ones, from the facts of the inorganic world, and perhaps also of the lowest forms of the organic world. It has also been seen that with regard to minute spontaneous variations in races, there is a rapidly increasing difficulty in intensifying them, in any one direction, by ever such careful breeding. Moreover, it has appeared that different species show a tendency to variability in special directions, and probably in different degrees, and that at any rate Mr. Darwin himself concedes the existence of an internal barrier to change when he credits the goose with "a singularly inflexible organization;" also, that he admits the presence of an internal proclivity to change when he speaks of "a whole organization seeming to have become plastic, and tending to depart from the parental type."
We have seen also that a marked tendency to reversion does exist, inasmuch as it sometimes takes place in a striking manner, as exemplified in the white silk fowl in England, in spite of careful selection in breeding.
Again, we have seen that a tendency exists in nature to eliminate hybrid races, by whatever means that elimination is effected, while no similar tendency bars the way to an indefinite blending of varieties. This has also been enforced by statements as to the prepotency of certain pollen of identical species, but of distinct races.
To all the preceding considerations have been added others derived from the relations of species to past time. It has been contended that we have as yet no evidence of minutely intermediate forms connecting uninterruptedly together undoubtedly distinct species. That while even "horse ancestry" fails to supply such a desideratum, in very strongly marked and exceptional kinds (such as the Ichthyosauria, Chelonia, and Anoura), the absence of links is very important and significant. For if every species, without exception, has arisen by minute modifications, it seems incredible that a small percentage of such transitional forms should not have been preserved. This, of course, is especially the case as regards the marine Ichthyosauria and Plesiosauria, of which such numbers of remains have been discovered.
Sir William Thomson's great authority has been seen to oppose itself to "Natural Selection," by limiting, on astronomical and physical grounds, the duration of life on this planet to about one hundred million years. This period, it has been contended, is not nearly enough on the one hand for the evolution of all organic forms by the exclusive action of mere minute, fortuitous variations; on the other hand, for the deposition of all the strata which must have been deposited, if minute fortuitous variation was the manner of successive specific manifestation.
Again, the geographical distribution of existing animals has been seen to present difficulties which, though not themselves insurmountable, yet have a certain weight when taken in conjunction with all the other objections.
The facts of homology, serial, bilateral and vertical, have also been passed in review. Such facts, it has been contended, are not explicable without admitting the action of what may most conveniently be spoken of as an internal power, the existence of which is supported by facts not only of comparative anatomy but of teratology and pathology also. "Natural Selection" also has been shown to be impotent to explain these phenomena, while the existence of such an internal power of homologous evolution diminishes the a priori improbability of an analogous law of specific origination.
All these various considerations have been supplemented by an endeavour to show the utter inadequacy of Mr. Darwin's theory with regard to the higher psychical phenomena of man (especially the evolution of moral conceptions), and with regard to the evolution of individual organisms by the action of Pangenesis. And it was implied that if Mr. Darwin's latter hypothesis can be shown to be untenable, an antecedent doubt is thus thrown upon his other conception, namely, the theory of "Natural Selection."
A cumulative argument thus arises against the prevalent action of "Natural Selection," which, to the mind of the Author, is conclusive. As before observed, he was not originally disposed to reject Mr. Darwin's fascinating theory. Reiterate endeavours to solve its difficulties have, however, had the effect of convincing him that that theory as the one or as the leading explanation of the successive evolution and manifestation of specific forms, is untenable. At the same time he admits fully that "Natural Selection" acts and must act, and that it plays in the organic world a certain though a secondary and subordinate part.
The one modus operandi yet suggested having been found insufficient, the question arises, Can another be substituted in its place? If not, can anything that is positive, and if anything, what, be said as to the question of specific origination?
Now, in the first place, it is of course axiomatic that the laws which conditioned the evolution of extinct and of existing species are of as much efficacy at this moment as at any preceding period, that they tend to the manifestation of new forms as much now as ever before. It by no means necessarily follows, however, that this tendency is actually being carried into effect, and that new species of the higher animals and plants are actually now produced. They may be so or they may not, according as existing circumstances favour, or conflict with, the action of those laws. It is possible that lowly organized creatures may be continually evolved at the present day, the requisite conditions being more or less easily supplied. There is, however, no similar evidence at present as to higher forms; while, as we have seen in Chapter VII., there are a priori considerations which militate against their being similarly evolved.
The presence of wild varieties and the difficulty which often exists in the determination of species are sometimes adduced as arguments that high forms are now in process of evolution. These facts, however, do not necessarily prove more than that some species possess a greater variability than others, and (what is indeed unquestionable) that species have often been unduly multiplied by geologists and botanists. It may be, for example, that Wagner was right, and that all the American monkeys of the genus cebus may be reduced to a single species or to two.
With regard to the lower organisms, and supposing views recently advanced to become fully established, there is no reason to think that the forms said to be evolved were new species, but rather reappearances of definite kinds which had appeared before and will appear again under the same conditions. In the same way, with higher forms similar conditions must educe similar results, but here practically similar conditions can rarely obtain because of the large part which "descent" and "inheritance" always play in such highly organized forms.
Still it is conceivable that different combinations at different times may have occasionally the same outcome just as the multiplications of different numbers may have severally the same result.
There are reasons, however, for thinking it possible that the human race is a witness of an exceptionally unchanging and stable condition of things, if the calculations of Mr. Croll are valid as to how far variations in the eccentricity in the earth's orbit together with the precession of the equinoxes have produced changes in climate. Mr. Wallace has pointed out[229] that the last 60,000 years having been exceptionally unchanging as regards these conditions, specific evolution may have been exceptionally rare. It becomes then possible to suppose that for a similar period stimuli to change in the manifestation of animal forms may have been exceptionally few and feeble,—that is, if the conditions of the earth's orbit have been as exceptional as stated. However, even if new species are actually now being evolved as actively as ever, or if they have been so quite recently, no conflict thence necessarily arises with the view here advocated. For it by no means follows that if some examples of new species have recently been suddenly produced from individuals of antecedent species, we ought to be able to put our fingers on such cases; as Mr. Murphy well observes[230] in a passage before quoted, "If a species were to come suddenly into being in the wild state, as the Ancon sheep did under domestication, how could we ascertain the fact? If the first of a newly-born species were found, the fact of its discovery would tell nothing about its origin. Naturalists would register it as a very rare species, having been only once met with, but they would have no means of knowing whether it were the first or the last of its race."
But are there any grounds for thinking that in the genesis of species an internal force or tendency interferes, co-operates with and controls the action of external conditions?
It is here contended that there are such grounds, and that though inheritance, reversion, atavism, Natural Selection, &c., play a part not unimportant, yet that such an internal power is a great, perhaps the main, determining agent.
It will, however, be replied that such an entity is no vera causa; that if the conception is accepted, it is no real explanation; and that it is merely a roundabout way of saying that the facts are as they are, while the cause remains unknown. To this it may be rejoined that for all who believe in the existence of the abstraction "force" at all, other than will, this conception of an internal force must be accepted and located somewhere—cannot be eliminated altogether; and that therefore it may as reasonably be accepted in this mode as in any other.
It was urged at the end of the third chapter that it is congruous to credit mineral species with an internal power or force. By such a power it may be conceived that crystals not only assume their external symmetry, but even repair it when injured. Ultimate chemical elements must also be conceived as possessing an innate tendency to form certain unions, and to cohere in stable aggregations. This was considered towards the end of Chapter VIII.
Turning to the organic world, even on the hypothesis of Mr. Herbert Spencer or that of Mr. Darwin, it is impossible to escape the conception of innate internal forces. With regard to the physiological units of the former, Mr. Spencer himself, as we have seen, distinctly attributes to them "an innate tendency" to evolve the parent form from which they sprang. With regard to the gemmules of Mr. Darwin, we have seen, in Chapter X., with how many innate powers, tendencies, and capabilities they must each be severally endowed, to reproduce their kind, to evolve complex organisms or cells, to exercise germinative affinity, &c.
If then (as was before said at the end of Chapter VIII.) such innate powers must be attributed to chemical atoms, to mineral species, to gemmules, and to physiological units, it is only reasonable to attribute such to each individual organism.
The conception of such internal and latent capabilities is somewhat like that of Mr. Galton, before mentioned, according to which the organic world consists of entities, each of which is, as it were, a spheroid with many facets on its surface, upon one of which it reposes in stable equilibrium. When by the accumulated action of incident forces this equilibrium is disturbed, the spheroid is supposed to turn over until it settles on an adjacent facet once more in stable equilibrium.
The internal tendency of an organism to certain considerable and definite changes would correspond to the facets on the surface of the spheroid.
It may be objected that we have no knowledge as to how terrestrial, cosmical and other forces can affect organisms so as to stimulate and evolve these latent, merely potential forms. But we have had evidence that such mysterious agencies do affect organisms in ways as yet inexplicable, in the very remarkable effects of geographical conditions which were detailed in the third chapter.
It is quite conceivable that the material organic world may be so constituted that the simultaneous action upon it of all known forces, mechanical, physical, chemical, magnetic, terrestrial, and cosmical, together with other as yet unknown forces which probably exist, may result in changes which are harmonious and symmetrical, just as the internal nature of vibrating plates causes particles of sand scattered over them to assume definite and symmetrical figures when made to oscillate in different ways by the bow of a violin being drawn along their edges. The results of these combined internal powers and external influences might be represented under the symbol of complex series of vibrations (analogous to those of sound or light) forming a most complex harmony or a display of most varied colours. In such a way the reparation of local injuries might be symbolized as a filling up and completion of an interrupted rhythm. Thus also monstrous aberrations from typical structure might correspond to a discord, and sterility from crossing be compared with the darkness resulting from the interference of waves of light.
Such symbolism will harmonize with the peculiar reproduction, before mentioned, of heads in the body of certain annelids, with the facts of serial homology, as well as those of bilateral and vertical symmetry. Also, as the atoms of a resonant body may be made to give out sound by the juxtaposition of a vibrating tuning-fork, so it is conceivable that the physiological units of a living organism may be so influenced by surrounding conditions (organic and other) that the accumulation of these conditions may upset the previous rhythm of such units, producing modifications in them—a fresh chord in the harmony of nature—a new species!
But it may be again objected that to say that species arise by the help of an innate power possessed by organisms is no explanation, but is a reproduction of the absurdity, l'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique. It is contended, however, that this objection does not apply, even if it be conceded that there is that force in Molière's ridicule which is generally attributed to it.[231] Much, however, might be said in opposition to more than one of that brilliant dramatist's smart philosophical epigrams, just as to the theological ones of Voltaire, or to the biological one of that other Frenchman who for a time discredited a cranial skeletal theory by the phrase "Vertèbre pensante."[232]
In fact, however, it is a real explanation of how a man lives to say that he lives independently, on his own income, instead of being supported by his relatives and friends. In the same way, there is fully as real a distinction between the production of new specific manifestations entirely ab externo, and by the production of the same through an innate force and tendency, the determination of which into action is occasioned by external circumstances.
To say that organisms possess this innate power, and that by it new species are from time to time produced, is by no means a mere assertion that they are produced, and in an unknown mode. It is the negation of that view which deems external forces alone sufficient, and at the same time the assertion of something positive, to be arrived at by the process of reductio ad absurdum.
All physical explanations result ultimately in such conceptions of innate power, or else in that of will force. The far-famed explanation of the celestial motions ends in the conception that every particle of matter has the innate power of attracting every other particle directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance.
We are logically driven to this positive conception if we do not accept the view that there is no force but volition, and that all phenomena whatever are the immediate results of the action of intelligent and self-conscious will.
We have seen that the notion of sudden changes—saltatory actions in nature—has received countenance from Professor Huxley.[233] We must conceive that these jumps are orderly, and according to law, inasmuch as the whole cosmos is such. Such orderly evolution harmonizes with a teleology derived, not indeed from external nature directly, but from the mind of man. On this point, however, more will be said in the next chapter. But, once more, if new species are not manifested by the action of external conditions upon minute indefinite individual differences, in what precise way may we conceive that manifestation to have taken place?
Are new species now evolving, as they have been from time to time evolved? If so, in what way and by what conceivable means?
In the first place, they must be produced by natural action in pre-existing material, or by supernatural action.
For reasons to be given in the next chapter, the second hypothesis need not be considered.
If, then, new species are and have been evolved from pre-existing material, must that material have been organic or inorganic?
As before said, additional arguments have lately been brought forward to show that individual organisms do arise from a basis of in-organic material only. As, however, this at the most appears to be the case, if at all, only with the lowest and most minute organisms exclusively, the process cannot be observed, though it may perhaps be fairly inferred.
We may therefore, if for no other reason, dismiss the notion that highly organized animals and plants can be suddenly or gradually built up by any combination of physical forces and natural powers acting externally and internally upon and in merely inorganic material as a base.
But the question is, how have the highest kinds of animals and plants arisen? It seems impossible that they can have appeared otherwise than by the agency of antecedent organisms not greatly different from them.
A multitude of facts, ever increasing in number and importance, all point to such a mode of specific manifestation.
One very good example has been adduced by Professor Flower in the introductory lecture of his first Hunterian Course.[234] It is the reduction in size, to a greater or less degree, of the second and third digits of the foot in Australian marsupials, and this, in spite of the very different form and function of the foot in different groups of those animals.
A similarly significant evidence of relationship is afforded by processes of the zygomatic region of the skull in certain edentates existing and extinct.
Again, the relation between existing and recent faunas of the different regions of the world, and the predominating (though by no means exclusive) march of organization, from the more general to the more special, point in the same direction.
Almost all the facts brought forward by the patient industry of Mr. Darwin in support of his theory of "Natural Selection," are of course available as evidence in favour of the agency of pre-existing and similar animals in specific evolution.
Now the new forms must be produced by changes taking place in organisms in, after or before their birth, either in their embryonic, or towards or in their adult, condition.
Examples of strange births are sufficiently common, and they may arise either from direct embryonic modifications or apparently from some obscure change in the parental action. To the former category belong the hosts of instances of malformation through arrest of development, and perhaps generally monstrosities of some sort are the result of such affections of the embryo. To the second category belong all cases of hybridism, of cross breed, and in all probability the new varieties and forms, such as the memorable one of the black-shouldered peacock. In all these cases we do not have abortions or monstrosities, but more or less harmonious forms often of great functional activity, endowed with marked viability and generative prepotency, except in the case of hybrids, when we often find even a more marked generative impotency.